Jean-Baptiste Say Quotes

Unfair methods of competition in commerce are hereby declared unlawful. The commission is hereby empowered and directed to prevent persons, partnerships, or corporations, except banks, and common carriers subject to the Acts to regulate commerce, from using unfair methods of competition in commerce.

…diligently investigate all complaints which may come to you from any source…and upon your own initiative of violations of the Elkins Act which prohibited “rebates and other discriminatory practices” on the part of corporations.

In areas where competitive markets work well beyond question, they are constantly under attack by government—members of both parties.

Men may differ as to the particular form of governmental activity with respect to industry and business, but nearly all are agreed that private enterprise in times such as these cannot be left without assistance and without reasonable safeguards lest it destroy not only itself but also our processes of civilization.

People of the same trade seldom meet together, even for merriment and diversion, but the conversation ends in a conspiracy against the public, or in some contrivance to raise prices.

The only way you can stop the unregulated monopoly ... from gouging ... is to introduce competition.

Tough enforcement of the antitrust laws can help prevent a recurrence of inflation by attacking abuses of economic power.

A man may not sell above the current price, i.e., such a price as is usual in the time and place, and as another (who knows the worth of the commodity) would give for it When a man loseth in his commodity for want of skill, etc., he must look at it as his own fault or cross, and therefore must not lay it upon another

The importance of supervising the business of great railways and industrial combinations and the necessary investigation and prosecution of unlawful business methods are another necessary tax upon Government which did not exist half a century ago.

[Monopolies and trusts are:] dangerous conspiracies against the public good.

The citizens of the several States composing the Union are entitled, of right, to buy goods in the State where they are manufactured, or in any other State, without being confronted by an illegal combination whose business extends throughout the whole country, which by the law everywhere is an enemy to the public interests, and which prevents such buying, except at prices arbitrarily fixed by it. I insist that the free course of trade among the States cannot coexist with such combinations.

All the authorities agree that in order to vitiate a contract or combination it is not essential that its result should be a complete monopoly; it is sufficient if it really tends to that end and to deprive the public of the advantages which flow from free competition.

New Yorkers pay a price of untold millions to the great private monopolies every year an excessive price because these monopolies use their power to defeat effective regulation.-

People of the same trade seldom meet together, even for merriment and diversion, but the conversation ends in a conspiracy against the public, or in some contrivance to raise prices. It is impossible indeed to prevent such meetings, by any law which either could be executed, or would be consistent with liberty or justice.

Trust and transparency, the great principles of the free market, are at stake here.

Every coercive monopoly was created by government intervention into the economy: by special privileges, such as franchises or subsidies, which closed the entry of competitors into a given field, by legislative action.

There is no place for government to prohibit consumers from buying products the effect of which will be to harm themselves.

Pure-food laws have become necessary to keep manufacturers from poisoning their customers; child labor laws have become necessary to keep employers from dwarfing the bodies, minds and souls of children; anti-trust laws have become necessary to keep overgrown corporations from strangling smaller competitors, and we are still in a death struggle with profiteers and gamblers in farm products.

there are times when we need to step in to make sure that competition works the way it should. By doing that, we help the market to work fairly, because competition gives consumers the power to demand a fair deal. It means that companies know that if they cannot offer good prices or the service that's expected, well, the customers will go somewhere else.

I think there's a point to regulating, because there are snake oil companies.

Every contract, combination in the form of trust or otherwise, or conspiracy, in restraint of trade or commerce among the several States, or with foreign nations, is declared to be illegal. Every person who shall make any contract or engage in any combination or conspiracy hereby declared to be illegal shall be deemed guilty of a felony….. Every person who shall monopolize, or attempt to monopolize, or combine or conspire with any other person or persons, to monopolize any part of the trade or commerce among the several States, or with foreign nations, shall be deemed guilty of a felony…

The so-called anti-trust laws were intended to prevent the creation of monopolies and to forbid unreasonable profits to those monopolies

We ... deceive ourselves in believing that competition can secure for the public fair treatment in such cases.

A market is a place set apart for men to deceive and get the better of one another.

Free competition and the open market system as they were known in the old days, have lost their places in the system, and that the only substitute for them, in these modern times, is government regulation and control.